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fhansen
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Yes, I’m just not sure why. Could being a human creature at all mitigate culpability?
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simpleas
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Can I try answering that…
I don’t think so. If I think of A&E being able to make a choice to accept satan’s promise of becoming like God it shows me they had plenty of knowledge and freedom of will. God provided what they needed, they had all the desire’s we have, perhaps on a higher level, no obviously on a higher level, they had the ability to be master’s of their desires, but could have at any time abused them. (we are wounded, so have less strength to avoid sin without asking for God’s help)
So even having all that they had, being told they could become God’s themselves was too tempting, God had created them as Human’s to live and love, not be God’s like him.
Losing knowledge of God could be why they then feared him, had a distorted view, i think it says in the ccc?
But God never did stop loving them.
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simpleas
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I’m unsure about death.i think they were imperfect humans who know what Good is and what evil is but, they did not know death. so, they were naturally curious about this.
¶The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t surely die,Code:Gn 3:4
Gn 3:3
3 ἀπὸ δὲ καρποῦ τοῦ ξύλου ὅ ἐστιν ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ παραδείσου εἶπεν ὁ θεός οὐ φάγεσθε ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ οὐδὲ μὴ ἅψησθε αὐτοῦ ἵνα μὴ ἀποθάνητε
but of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” Gn 3:6
¶When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate.
God bless
When God told them not to eat of the tree, as they would die, saying they were curious to know what death was could be plausible, but it says to me God didn’t allow them to understand what death meant, so would he really be so unloving as to let them out of curiousity find out for themselves what would happen? God is of love and life, but gave them freedom also to choose.
I think death may mean something other than bodily.
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wmw
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This is confusing to me. I agree in part with the first statement that this is a knowledge that was beyond Adam as he was in Eden. Still, the name is a good name for the tree was given this name by God:
In being a Godly name I propose that it must impart some sort of Knowledge and it be about good and evil. I agree that Satin abused the name and created a lie in telling Adam & Eve that it would make them like God. Possibly the Godly power of omniscience was how they envisioned this lie from Satin.
Where I depart is in what God was trying to convey in this name. Adam did eat it and if he does not obtain this knowledge then there would be a falsehood in how God named it. The only way I’ve been able to arrive at a satisfying reason for the name is if God is calling it the tree of experiencing the good & evil of our fallen world for after they ate they did come to experience evil and by contrast now understand the good much more deeply.
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fhansen
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I think that, if Adam & Eve were 100% culpable, then they’d be nonredeemable and God would’ve annihilated them-or never created them. As with Jesus’s persecutors at the crucifixion (“Lord forgive them…”), there was a degree of ignorance involved IMO. Otherwise, having been made good by God, how was sin even possible, free will notwithstanding?
And I think that the distorted view and mistrust, came as they failed to trust; it came because the act of disobedience, itself, was already an act of mistrust. A distorted view of God is more in keeping with someone who hasn’t yet come to appreciate and value that which is truly good-the Ultimate Good in this case.
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fhansen
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**“I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters that I have greatly sinned, in what I have done and what I have failed to do…”
**
I think some of this stuff is fairly simple, even ordinary in a sense. We all know what it means to sin-and what the ‘draw’ is. In sinning we not only give in to some urge but, being moral creatures, we first, perhaps almost instantaneously depending on the situation, assess and justify our motivations and therefore our actions. I’ve had the experience at times (far in the past, of course
) of not necessarily wanting to commit a particular sin as much as enjoying the glory and prestige garnered from those around me by committing it; concern for the “praise of men”- fear of others opinions-drove me. I think that was an ingredient in the recipe of Adam’s fall; he wanted to please and stay with Eve.But there’s more yet to be gained by sin-and we see it played out most obviously with adolescents. We think we’ll be “in the know”; we’ll graduate, so to speak, once we’ve experienced this or that, Of course we’ll have just joined the crowd in reality-and managed to distance ourselves further from our own integrity. And a big player in all this is the* voice *of the crowd, the opinions of others, that can sound in our minds even when they’re not around. Adam & Eve perhaps would never have considered sinning if not for the pressure of one of their creaturely contemporaries, the serpent, who managed to drown out the voice of God. Just a thought or two.
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simpleas
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They were to blame through their own act/choice. But why would God withhold his love, or destroy the beauty of his human creature since he already knew they would fall away from his presence at some point?
The choice was always possible, because of freewill.
Man always wants more. Even though A&E had all which was Good, I think they still could have wanted more. To me, to say they had all which was good only, and therefore they could not have sinned, says they were more than human. To say they couldn’t have known about things less than good, says they were far to innocent to have been tested in this way.
I agree with trust, that was lost as soon as satan told them they would be Gods. Up until the idea of having it all, they were probably quite at peace with themselves and God, but after they fell peace disappears.
With the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they eat of it, only then do they know Good and Evil, so wouldn’t that be useful to them so that they could choose goodness instead of evil?
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grannymh
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This is a good understanding. However, I am not sure what you mean by the last sentence. My doubt is in bold.
“With the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they eat of it, only then do they know Good and Evil, so wouldn’t that be useful to them so that they could choose goodness instead of evil?”
It is absolutely clear that Adam and Eve knew the meaning of goodness and evil before they were tempted by Satan. The tree’s name has nothing to do with the fact that Adam knew *both *goodness *and *evil the moment he was placed in the Garden. (Genesis 2: 15-17)
Did Adam and Eve need to eat the fruit so that they could choose goodness instead of evil, because God was a liar? That was the temptation of Satan.
Adam was with God Who placed him in the Garden. Certainly, we must consider God as goodness. And death of Adam’s good relationship with the good God has to been considered evil. (Genesis 2: 15-17)
Please, why is it so hard to see that making the tree’s fruit necessary for Adam and Eve to eat is the same as saying that God Himself is not goodness and that separation from God is not important. (Genesis 2: 15-17)
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fhansen
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Useful, yes, but necessary, no, or else God would never have told them not to eat of it-and it’d be unjust to hold them accountable for eating of it. In any case Adam and Eve knew enough to be held accountable, and yet were imperfect to the degree that they were fallible. From the CCC:
**302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created “in a state of journeying” (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call “divine providence” the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:
By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, “reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well”. For “all are open and laid bare to his eyes”, even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.
310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better.174 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.175**
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aragonjohn1
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okay, this makes sense.I’m unsure about death.
When God told them not to eat of the tree, as they would die, saying they were curious to know what death was could be plausible, but it says to me God didn’t allow them to understand what death meant, so would he really be so unloving as to let them out of curiousity find out for themselves what would happen? God is of love and life, but gave them freedom also to choose.
I think death may mean something other than bodily.
since, they have grace and virtue imbued curiosity; the other option is they want to know More about the happening.God bless
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simpleas
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I knew I’d wrote that last sentence wrong.This is a good understanding. However, I am not sure what you mean by the last sentence. My doubt is in bold.
“With the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they eat of it, only then do they know Good and Evil, so wouldn’t that be useful to them so that they could choose goodness instead of evil?”
It is absolutely clear that Adam and Eve knew the meaning of goodness and evil before they were tempted by Satan. The tree’s name has nothing to do with the fact that Adam knew *both *goodness *and *evil the moment he was placed in the Garden. (Genesis 2: 15-17)
Did Adam and Eve need to eat the fruit so that they could choose goodness instead of evil, because God was a liar? That was the temptation of Satan.
Adam was with God Who placed him in the Garden. Certainly, we must consider God as goodness. And death of Adam’s good relationship with the good God has to been considered evil. (Genesis 2: 15-17)
Please, why is it so hard to see that making the tree’s fruit necessary for Adam and Eve to eat is the same as saying that God Himself is not goodness and that separation from God is not important. (Genesis 2: 15-17)
I meant it as a question to help readers see where I was coming from, but it didn’t work!
With the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they eat of it,only then do they know Good and Evil?
No, God gave them some knowledge of good and evil before being tempted this would make better sense of how they could make a decision with their own minds and free will.
They had this knowledge to begin with, the trust they lost in God as their source of goodness through the lies of satan becomes distorted, they loose the ability to fully understand good from evil anymore and sin starts to unfold more and more.
Any better?
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simpleas
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Coolokay, this makes sense.
God bless
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grannymh
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Adam had the necessary full, not some, knowledge of good and evil which was necessary for his position as the first human person.
Perhaps the confusion comes from not seeing the importance of Genesis 2: 15-17. That is the full knowledge of what is good and what is evil. We should not overlook the facts that nothing is more good that sharing God’s life. (Adam’s state of original holiness) And that nothing is more evil than separation from God. (Adam’s Original Sin)
Obviously, Adam would not have the evil knowledge that driving drunk could kill a child for example. We are not talking about 21st century knowledge. We are talking about the extremely necessary knowledge of what was necessary for Adam to share in God’s life. (first two sentences in CCC, 396; CCC, 1730)
Additional note: We cannot say that Adam lost the ability to fully understand good from evil because that denies God’s creation of the rational spiritual soul. We can say that Adam’s human nature was wounded because “being wounded” is not at all the same as lost. (CCC, 404-405) It is that wounded nature which is transmitted to us.
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simpleas
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Useful, yes, but necessary, no, or else God would never have told them not to eat of it-and it’d be unjust to hold them accountable for eating of it
from ccc
384 Revelation makes known to us the state of original holiness and justice of man and woman before sin: from their friendship with God flowed the happiness of their existence in paradise.
I think its right to say we are on a state of journeying towards perfection,which A&E had in the sense they could walk with God and be at peace with him, themselves and creation, many seem to have achieved it (prophets) .With their understanding on how (i would say) to walk with God again. Christ shows us how to do this, but before Christ came to teach us, I think we interperted many teaches incorrectly.
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fhansen
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Do you think it’s possible that Adam may’ve gained knowledge since the Fall anyway, sufficient to turn him back to God, perhaps?
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grannymh
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I have never read that Original Sin caused Adam to loose his memory of being in the presence of God. And I also doubt that he lost his memory of Genesis 2: 15-17 and Genesis 3:15. And since the last line of CCC, 396 is written on human hearts, it would remain because God constantly calls each person to share in His divine life. Regardless of sin, Adam and ourselves are still in the image of God even though we ignore that image and choose Mortal Sin. Adam’s spiritual soul existed before Original Sin and after it.
Thus, I am not sure what “knowledge” you are talking about. Sorry about that .
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fhansen
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I’d submit that if Adam truly knew God then he would’ve loved Him-and never turned away from Him. As it is he lacked the spiritual maturity to truly know and value God and His love, to simply value God as he should. I’d also submit that Adam sent us all-himself included- reeling into a world which was meant by God to be much more formative in nature than punitive or even reformative.I have never read that Original Sin caused Adam to loose his memory of being in the presence of God. And I also doubt that he lost his memory of Genesis 2: 15-17 and Genesis 3:15. Thus, I am not sure what “knowledge” you are talking about. Sorry about that .
The plan of salvation since that time has included the education of humankind, to gain the knowledge and wisdom to turn ourselves back to God, via grace, as we’re wise enough to become willing; to reverse, so to speak, Adam’s decision within us all, one at a time. The effective absence of God in this life, the lack of* communion *between man and Him that prevails here, has as its purpose our learning of our need for Him, of our lost condition without Him, especially when combined with the work of our “Finder”, the Good Shepard, who demonstrated, when the time was ripe in history-when we approached the appropriate “grade level”-the existence, trustworthiness, and love of God in no uncertain terms: who shows us the way back to Him.
I think Adam had much to learn-and that’s the biggest part of our ‘journey to perfection’.
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simpleas
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*Adam had the necessary full, not some, knowledge of good and evil which was necessary for his position as the first human person. *
OK
Perhaps the confusion comes from not seeing the importance of Genesis 2: 15-17. That is the full knowledge of what is good and what is evil. We should not overlook the facts that nothing is more good that sharing God’s life. (Adam’s state of original holiness) And that nothing is more evil than separation from God. (Adam’s Original Sin)
I thought disobedience was the cause of O.S and we were never actually separated from God.
Obviously, Adam would not have the evil knowledge that driving drunk could kill a child for example. We are not talking about 21st century knowledge. We are talking about the extremely necessary knowledge of what was necessary for Adam to share in God’s life. (first two sentences in CCC, 396; CCC, 1730)
Yes we are not talking about 21st century knowledge, but for people living in the 21st century it needs to be understandable
Additional note: We cannot say that Adam lost the ability to fully understand good from evil because that denies God’s creation of the rational spiritual soul. We can say that Adam’s human nature was wounded because “being wounded” is not at all the same as lost. (CCC, 404-405) It is that wounded nature which is transmitted to us.
Wounded is better then.
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simpleas
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Yes we are educated to gain knowledge (not sure about wisdom! ha) to turn ourselves back to God, back to what the first two humans once had in the beginning.
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grannymh
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Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraphs 404-405
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